Easy Finance

With less than a month to go before debt ceiling D-Day, President Obama says he’s gunning for the big deal — the comprehensive, balanced plan that would take a big knife to the country’s debt.

That so-called “grand bargain” would be worth up to $4 trillion in debt reduction over the next decade.

But getting that grand bargain will be very hard and not just because time is short.

“This is a really heavy lift,” said longtime political observer Norm Ornstein, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

So heavy, in fact, that Ornstein is not convinced lawmakers will get past their partisan furies before markets go nuts and jolt them into action if only to raise the debt ceiling.

That’s because the key issues under discussion are political rats’ nests.

Tax increases: Republicans have said repeatedly that they’re happy to put everything on the table except tax increases. Democrats, meanwhile, have said they can’t agree to a spending-cuts only deal.

But Republicans are not budging publicly, and especially not after Friday’s disappointing jobs report.

“It just does not make sense for Americans to suffer under higher taxes in an economy like this. Read all post…